Meza had knack for getting people to move in same direction

Army veteran Father Richard Peña, left, and Choco Meza, a community organizer for San Antonio for Hillary, Kaine, talk together at a Veterans for Hillary rally put on by San Antonio for Hillary, Kaine, and by the Bexar County Democratic Party on Friday, September 2, 2016.

Photo: Matthew Busch / For the San Antonio Express-News

Up until the last two weeks of her life, Choco Meza was still fearless, still moving forward with energy, focus and drive. She had no second to spare, way too much to do and the clock was ticking so loudly.

She slowed only when her body forbade movement. When she died of advanced liver cancer, diagnosed just days before, she had already requested a mail-in ballot in hopes of a viable treatment that was not to be.

Friends say that was just like her to be thinking ahead, forever looking on the positive side. She’ll be eulogized this morning at San Fernando Cathedral, where so many will have their own stories of her.

The longtime activist, leader and Democratic Party stalwart spent her life working for social justice and voting rights, but before her death she was working on getting Hillary Clinton elected president of the United States. A taskmaster at heart, she was directing volunteers to mobilize voters.

Friend Rosie Castro said Meza had the ability “to bring different people together and get them marching in the same direction.”

Her story is quintessentially American. She arrived in Texas from Zaragoza, Coahuila, at age 2, the youngest of five children born to hardworking, hopeful parents.

Her father was deported several times, moving in and out of the country until he got papers. A ranch hand, he dug irrigation ditches and eventually brought his family to Uvalde, then Eagle Pass.

Meza spent her early years in shacks with dirt floors. But she “always felt rich,” said her husband of 44 years, Daniel Meza. “Her parents were so dynamic; there was so much energy and passion to succeed.”

She showed grit even as a girl, surviving an accident in which she was run over by a truck. Hospitalized for months, she recovered and went back to being her cheery, self-determined self.

Meza’s political involvement started as a teen, when Chicano students were walking out of schools in protest of unequal educational opportunities, unprepared teachers, crumbling facilities and a lack of textbooks.

She traveled with friends to Del Rio schools to participate in a walkout. It would lead to involvement in the Chicano movement and the Raza Unida Party. She and her husband were equally involved, but he says she was the leader.

The Mezas met in a stairwell at Memorial High School, where she was student-teaching in physical education. She was then on the women’s varsity volleyball team at St. Mary’s University, he said. It was spring 1973. By November, they were married. She was just a junior.

Meza will be most remembered for her early research work under St. Mary’s President Emeritus Charlie Cotrell, then a political science professor. She and Castro collected and analyzed voting data for use in court cases waged by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. It was in line with her parents’ own grass-roots work. They fund-raised to help friends and neighbors pay their poll taxes to be able to vote, Meza’s husband said.

Her research helped draw redistricting maps for the city’s single-member districts. Her fieldwork in small South Texas communities did the same. She and her husband trained candidates seeking to run for office.

Meza was the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project’s first national research director. She was executive director of a YWCA. At the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under Henry Cisneros, she served as deputy assistant secretary for intergovernmental relations.

Meza came home to work as senior vice president of the San Antonio Housing Authority and managed several campaigns, including that of District 5 Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales, whom she served as chief of staff.

Meza was known for saying, “No problem.” Castro gave her a wooden carving with that motto. “She viewed life that way,” Castro said. “She saw a barrier and figured she could go under it, over it, through it or around it.”

“When you think about the dirt floor, the accident, she never let anyone or anything get in her way,” Cotrell said.

She never got to see the entire PBS documentary “Willie Velasquez: Your Vote Is Your Voice,” in which she appeared so magnificently. She heard her voice in the film and tears came to her eyes.

Meza’s death leaves a vacuum. Many will sense it now and for years to come. Gonzales will miss the nightime drives around the district with her, most recently looking for spots in need of more lighting. “She’d say, ‘I’ve spent my life here, right here on the West Side,’” Gonzales said.

This afternoon Choco Meza will be laid to rest there, in San Fernando Cemetery No. 2, in her beloved West Side, an area and a people to which she devoted her life.

Elaine Ayala has been in the newspaper business for 33 years as a reporter, editor, blogger and columnist. She has worked at six metropolitan dailies, including the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, the Arizona Daily Star, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, the Austin American-Statesman and the El Paso Times

She has worked at the San Antonio Express-News for 16 years. Her Metro column runs on Monday in the Express-News and in its bilingual weekly Conexión. She writes a Latino Life blog about "Latino arts, politics y mas" on MySanAntonio.com. Her minority affairs beat focuses on diversity and ethnic communities.

The San Antonio native graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979.

Ayala has been involved in several journalism organizations throughout her career, most focused on increasing the number of minorities and women in the U.S. newsroom and raising money for scholarships for students pursuing careers in the media.

She speaks at area schools and community organizations and has served as a mistress of ceremonies for several galas and events. In addition to her newspaper work, she has written for several publications, including Latino magazine, Latino Future magazine, the National Catholic Reporter and a couple of now-defunct magazines.